Kagerou
by Erisis
Summary: On the nightof a new moon, Inuyasha runs into Sesshomaru’s reincarnation while prowling the streets of modern-day Tokyo. Bewildered and concerned, his focus shifts from Naraku to the prideful lord in hopes of preventing the mysterious events of his death


_Authors Note_: So, when I started writing fanfic's, I made a promise to myself that I would never start another story before finishing another. Obviously, I broke it. I think I understand why authors tackle more than one work at a time now; if you hit a road block for one, you work on the other, and-I knew I would lose this idea forever if I didn't write it down!  
I love the start of Inuyasha, but, hate how it seems to have become one of those generic run-on-anime's. As with Poignant Couplet, I am basing this mostly on the manga, but, I've only read the first couple books. Thankfully, there are overview's of the latest manga chapters and scanlations! Even so, if I make a mistake-please feel free to let me know.

I'm trying really hard to keep up to date with the manga, but I don't have time to run out and read the latest chapters for myself. From the point in which this story begins, Sesshomaru has obtained _Bakusaiga_, and thus is no longer armless P  
It takes place after the final shard has been withdrawn from Kohaku's neck, and the group is in, I guess you could say, remission.  
The name, **Kagerou**, is the title of a song by the band BUCK-TICK, and the absolute perfect theme for the story-hence its becoming the title! Enjoy, and remember, as always, to review; Inu-themed prizes are in store as rewards!

_Prologue_:  
**Kagerou**

"Hey, Kagome..."

"Hmm?"

Ears twitched atop a head of matted, unruly white, fidgeting as an extension of the restlessness the adjoined body felt. Amber eyes, after much wander, had settled on the profile of the schoolgirl at the right, working away on something at what he had been told was a 'computer', for a subject he couldn't remember in a class he hadn't caught the name off. "What happens, after this?"

"This?"

Kagome's tone signified the need for clarification, but held little interest in whatever 'this' was, her attention deviated solely to the complication of her essay on the contrasting cultures between modern and feudal day Japan. Finally, a subject she knew something about!

"Yea, you know _this_." A clawed hand interfered with her vision, tapping the screen, and Kagome shoved it away in fear of it cracking. Inuyasha and technology did not mix. "What, after my essay? I don't know, bed I guess." "No, not that…what are you writing it for?"  
Kagome blinked, her face scrunching and eyes squinting slightly; where was he going with this? "For High School…" "Right," Inuyasha gave a nod, and restated, in more specific terms "what happens _after _that?"

The days of chasing shards of shikon no tama had ended. Inuyasha found himself thinking more on the past, and future, than the all important present. Naraku, having the completed jewel free of Kikyo's purification, should have been his top priority. His time was spent, however, not on battle strategies or tactical plans (not that he ever had a pre-meditated plan before) but of thought's of their journey, and how with Naraku's downfall, they too would come to an end.

What would happen _then_?

"Collage."

"_Collage_?"

Inuyasha repeated, the word forming heavy in his mouth, rolling off his tongue as if stated in a foreign langue "What's 'collage'?" Kagome giggled, murmuring something under her breath the hanyo didn't bother to understand, and added a new sub-section to her essay: _The growth of education_.  
"Collage is where you go when you want to study in a specific field, which requires more schooling than you get from High school." Saving her progress, Kagome stretched in her seat, turning her now undivided attention to the confused half-breed perched on her bed. "I got high grades in health, and I have always wanted to be a doctor. So, after High School, I'm going to get my medical degree."

_Medical…degree?_  
Inuyasha ran it over in his head. Kagome wanted to make a career for herself as a doctor. A doctor, whose skill's would be taught with the knowledge of _this_ time, and thus, whose only purpose would be to treat human's in the modern era. Sitting 'doggy' style on the bed, he waited for some elaboration, for Kagome to clarify how she would still come through the well to visit, or how it would benefit them all in the past.

The hour passed, another sluggishly fallowing, but Inuyasha's assumption met no fulfillment. By the third hour, Kagome had finished her essay, and celebrating her victory with a much desired bubble bath, left the demon lord's son to contemplate, alone. What would happen, after their journey had come to its end? Kagome belonged here, in what was _her_ present, and not in Inuyasha's past. What if the well stopped working, after the jewel had been lifted from evil's grasp? It was because Kagome fell down the well with the jewel in her body that it worked at all, right? So, when it was gone…

There were so many 'what ifs' running about Inuyasha's mind, they rivaled the number of shards the jewel had broken into. Sango and Miroku would be married, after the fighting was over, or so Kagome repeatedly said. 

Shippo would stay with the group until he reached adulthood and ventured out into a life of his own, but just which group he would stay with, and who that group would be made up of, remained to be seen.

Never before had Inuyasha given thought to the future of his companions in such as way as this. In the back of his mind he had presumed that they would be together forever, that goodbyes would never take place, and their journey would never really end. It was becoming clear now, however, that something was going to have to give. Kagome could not keep up the transition of travel between their two worlds forever, there was a chance even, that the well would not allow it.

Then, there was death.  
Miroku, Sango, and Kagome were all human, and like all humans, would grow old and die. It was only in these recent weeks that Inuyasha had began to wonder how he, being a half-breed, would react to times hold on mortality. Without doubt, he knew his demon blood granted him longevity and youth, but was this without decay like full blood demons, or would he to start to wither away? Which part of him would give way first, the demon, or

"Human…"  
Vexed, Inuyasha huffed out a sigh, gazing at his mortal reflection in the full length mirror across from Kagome's bed, his black hair, soft skin, chestnut brown eyes. Tonight, was a night of the new moon, and tonight, Inuyasha would walk the streets of modern day Tokyo in this mortal state. Inclining his gaze to the bathroom door, he wondered if Kagome had forgotten of it, or if the priestess simply was silent out of ease that he was spending his mortal night out of the reach of demons.

"This is all I could find; hopefully it's your size." Souta had entered, carrying a box at least fix times his width, full of cloths that used to belong to his father. With a grunt, he set the box on his sisters' bed and watched Inuyasha pick threw it, his head tilted up and eyes locked on empty space normally occupied by the older males' ears. "Inuyasha, why are you going out tonight?"

"I gotta have a reason?" Inuyasha quipped, disrobing his feudal wardrobe for the fashions of today, having a far amount of trouble squirming into a pair of jeans, which were, as luck would have it, a size or two below the comfort level. "I guess not…but…it's all kinda random you know?"

"This is the one night I can walk around your city without a scarf on my head,"

"It's called a bandanna…"  
"Whatever," Inuyasha sighed, rolling his eyes, his hands fiddling with the buttons of ebony hued dress shirt "the point is, I can do whatever I want wherever I want without people freakn' out."

"I think it's the claws and fangs that weird them out, not so much the ears…" Souta mumbled, kicking his feet as he sat on Kagome's bed, watching Inuyasha's reflection with the male as they gazed into the mirror "Am I wearing these right?" When Souta gave a nod of confirmation, Inuyasha smirked, regarding himself with one last glance before climbing over the table to the window, dropping to the earth below, despite the protest of the pup.

He landed lightly, legs bent, and with a scowl looked up to the second story window where Souta watched him with disbelieving eyes. "I'm a human kid, not a cripple!" His expression softened into an arrogant grin, and a hand rose in silent goodbye as he headed off, keeping onto the slightly razed ground most humans seemed to walk instead of flat streets which, Kagome had clarified, was primarily reserved for cars.

Several times Inuyasha had traveled the pavement covered earth of Tokyo, several times he had seen the concrete jungle and cold steel of city scrapers which took the place of earth and plants. Humans in this age seemed to forsake the beauty of nature. What was once honored, revered and considered majestic was now obsolete. Kagome spoke of this era as a 'golden age', Japan was at its peak of technological advancements. Inuyasha wondered how humanity had grown so vain.

To travel Tokyo as a human was a slight deviant from his hanyo form. His sense of smell was gone; the strong order of exhaust, oil and burnt rubber no longer the ruling discomfort it had been, though his noise still stung with the foreign poison polluting the air. The paved streets still felt funny under his feet, and even as a mortal the lights were blinding, sounds painfully load. The Tokyo lights were so bright, it was next to impossible to see a star in the sky. People cluttered the streets for as far as his human eyes could see, mostly young, some old, always moving and running about. He imagined that if one were to stand still, it would be a very lonely feeling, having so many people pass you by.

For a while, he drifted aimlessly about, for once taking the time to _look_ at everything around him instead of idly running by. He explored a few of the shops, music stores, clothing, and one which was hidden away in the red-light district, and despite not knowing what most of the items in the place were for, he had a strange feeling Miroku would spend a great deal of time here, if he ever made it to the present.

It was on his way back towards Kagome's house, when something extensively strange caught his eye. There was this one building in which many, many humans were entering, in groups of dozens. There was nothing particularly interesting about it, from the look of its outsides. Just a building, with no windows, and a generic sign…

Curious, he peaked his had inside, and in a flash-found himself being forced in by the next wave of impatient humans thrusting to get by.  
Caught in the drift he was carried across stone tiles into another mob of humans, all of them shifting in rather absurd ways, faces and bodies blurred with obnoxious flashing lights. The music was so load he could feel it rumble in his bones, and in the midst of all the chaos, Inuyasha found himself surrounded by a bundle of unfamiliar, _overfriendly_ bodies.

"The HELL?!"

Even his irate shout did not rise above the blare of sound, and with the number of people multiplying around him, Inuyasha's aggravation began to border on rage. It was time for a more direct approach. With a huff, the hanyo pushed himself against a woman at his right, trying to shove his way free of the sea of dancing adolescences around him, pushing and squirming, lips mumbling incoherent curses and face flushed with frustration.

To the eager and intoxicated populous around him, however, the fiery hanyo was ample and alluring prey. Not long after he had began to fight his way thru the crowd, Inuyasha took notice that those around him were fight back, in a much more _intimate_ way. The hanyo bristled as his shove was met with a sliding thrust, the motion sending his body backward against another. In the next second, hands were introduced, the woman at his front taking a liking to Inuyasha's ebony hair, the male behind clasping at is hips.

An image of Jakotsu popped into his head, and this time, you _could_ hear Inuyasha scream.

Wriggling free of the bodies compressing against him, a very flustered, very red hanyo scrambled off the dance floor, seeking refuge in the only part of the club that was slightly less cramped, and collapsed onto the bar. There was a mass of bodies around him, still, and the flashing lights and spastic music made it impossible to concentrate on where they were going. On the bright side, he wasn't being humped.

"That seat is taken."

"No shit," Inuyasha snapped, rolling his eyes "obviously since my ass is sitting here, its' taken by--" in an angry whirlwind he turned, but his bark literally lost its bite when the human came into sight, the snarl on his lips going slack, the snap of his voice dissolving in confusion "…_Sesshomaru_?"

Long lashes lowered with the narrowing of golden eyes, framed by impeccably fine raven hair, whisked behind one shoulder and tucked behind an ear. The man's face was sullen, and pale, yet his lips had creased in a smile, one which sent a prick of thunder thru Inuyasha's body.

That was _not_ a good smile.

"_I_ will have to have to dethrone you, then."

He was alarmingly fast, for a human. In a single bound, this male had lifted Inuyasha by the collar and tossed him onto the tile floor. Standing between the two blood colored stools, his arms at his side, he held himself in an air befitting a king; elegant, regal, and dripping with pride. The lights flashed, and in that instant, Inuyasha swore he saw a crescent adorning the forehead of this human, with matching magenta stripes streaking either side of his face.

Speechless, Inuyasha rose from the ground, unable to form anything close to a word with his mouth. Was this Sesshomaru's reincarnation? _The_ Sesshomaru, his human hating prideful brother, reborn again as a mortal in modern day Japan? "How…"

"Shizumaru-sempai!"

Chestnut eyes watched as the humans sadistic smile fell into a vacant line, his eyes focused downward a good two inches from his height, on the slim, radiant woman at his right. "I'm sooo sorry I'm late; please don't be mad Shizumaru-sempai." Her large brown eyes gazed only at Sesshomaru's look-a-like, her hair barely shoulder length, an orange flower comb holding it back on the left side, her body outlined in a form-fitting amber gown. "You are mad, oh, I'm so sorry! I can make it up to you, I promise."

"I am not mad, Ren." His head bowed slightly, a subtle sign of favor towards the girl beheld in golden eyes, and without even a dismissive glance, lead here away "Come, this place bores me."

"Wha? But I just got here!"

"Perhaps, you will be more punctual in the future."

Inuyasha stood in place, frozen, the once deafening music mute to his ears. If that _was_ the demon lord's reincarnation, then…

Sesshomaru was going to die.


End file.
